ARSENAL suffered a major injury blow as Thomas Partey was subbed off at half-time in the 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta does not know the extent of the damage but confirmed the midfielder will have a scan on his thigh on Monday or Tuesday.
Arsenal star Thomas Partey had to be subbed off at half-time against Aston Villa because of injuryCredit: AP:Associated Press
The £45million signing had earned rave reviews for his performance in the 1-0 win against Manchester United last week.
But the Ghana international did not immediately emerge with the rest of the Arsenal team after the break against Aston Villa.
With his side trailing 1-0 at half-time, it was then announced the defensive midfielder would be replaced by Dani Ceballos.
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Reports inside the ground pointed to a possible thigh injury sustained in the first-half.
And Gunners boss Arteta confirmed after the defeat that he does not yet know the extent of the damage.
The Spaniard said: “We don’t know, we have to scan him tomorrow or the day after.
“He felt it straight away after seven or eight minutes.”
Things went from bad to worse for the Gunners as Ollie Watkins struck two second-half goals against a poor Arsenal defence.
On the performance, Arteta added: “I’ll keep what I said to my players in the dressing room private, my role is to get the team performing at the highest level every three days and today we haven’t done that and since I got appointed it’s the first time I haven’t seen that team on the pitch.
“This is football and when you are not at the races and not at your best teams destroy you in the Premier League.
“It’s a really bad combination if you don’t win the duels, you are late and they are more focused, they are more determined for every ball. If you don’t defend your box well enough and you have chances but you don’t put them away.
“No we are not creating enough chances but the ones we did create were clear enough to score at least one goal but if you look at the numbers from last few games it’s not enough.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
